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Hello

Hi folks

I've just found this site and am looking forward to learning as much as I can about bread making. My current fascination is sourdough production using Mick Hartley's recipes from his 'Sourdough Made Simple' book as the starting point. I tend not to follow recipes slavishly and as the only oven I own capable of baking bread is a halogen oven can't follow the vast majority of recipes without modifying them.

Thanks for coming, enjoy your stay. I've only been here a couple months myself, and I'm finding that I learn something almost every time I come on here. There are others on here with restrictions like baking in a mini oven, or a toaster oven. I'm thankful to have a full size oven. But, I've seen loaves on here baked in smaller spaces, that make me jealous. One thing worth learning is that your senses are a better judge of good dough, and of good bread, than any recipe, once they are honed. I'm still working on that skill set. I don't know how experienced you are at baking, maybe more than me. Anyway, Welcome to TFL!

Thanks for the welcome, DavidEF. One thing I've learnt is that trusting my hearing as to when a loaf is done is no good. I've tried the standard: "tap the loaf and if it sounds hollow it's done" trick and still ended up with underdone loaves. I find the best thing is to whack the oven up to max for around 10 or 15 minutes with a bit of water in the bottom then turn it down to around 200 C to cook the loaf. I also split the cooking time in half and turn the loaf over half way through. That way it cooks through without burning. I still can't get the loaves to rise consistently yet though.

Eating breads is also one of my favorite hobbies. I bake, so that I can have bread worth eating. I can't afford to pay someone for good bread. I'm still learning, but even my failures are better than supermarket loaves.

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